Oceanside joins effort to humanize Coast Highway

Oceanside is full of surprises. For a city marked by a fractious city council and lingering money problems – both for as long as I can remember – Oceanside oddly enough has an uncanny knack for getting things done.

Oceanside Harbor is a delightful mini-Seaport Village that ranks as one of North County’s must-see tourist destinations. The pier is alive and exciting, the row houses on the north end of town are a model of smart development, the Civic Center complex is a gem and the San Luis Rey bike trail is one of the few dedicated bike paths in the entire county. Heck, even the city’s redesigned website is awesome.

That’s why I have such high hopes for the city’s nascent plans to spruce up the 3.1-mile stretch of Old Highway 101 that runs through town – and its willingness to look at what other cities have done, or are doing, to their respective portions of the famed coastal highway.

Years ago, Oceanside was the first to recognize both the historical importance and the modern-day potential of the highway. The “Hill Street” name was dropped and historic markers went up along the roadway, largely due to the efforts of local historian and visionary John Daley, whose 101 Café – housed in a building that’s 85 years old – has been brilliantly restored to its 1950s heyday, before Interstate 5 plowed through North County and left the coast highway a neglected alternate route.

But beyond that, nothing much has been done. Oceanside’s short attention span – the city is known for quick projects here and there rather than a cohesive, sweeping master plan tied to a series of action steps – led to pockmarks of improvement scattered around town, while the Coast Highway was left untouched, with businesses continuing to die and pedestrians and bicyclists shying away from the road as I-5 became increasingly congested and motorists turned to the highway as an alternate route.

True, an ambitious master plan was drafted and adopted back in April 2009, but there was never any follow through. Apparently the plan, which talked about road diets and wider sidewalks and bike lanes, never studied the impact on traffic, which gave Oceanside officials a convenient out.

But now, both from what I’m reading in this paper and hearing around town, things are different. Other coastal towns, including Solana Beach and Encinitas, are tackling the Coast Highway head-on with a mandate to boost human interactivity – an objective that both recognizes and feeds the highway’s changed role.

In the old days, Highway 101 was the county’s major north-south artery, with motels, auto shops and diners that catered to the stop-and-go traveler. Today, the highway isn’t so much a way to get from here to there as it is a potential destination, a “there,” if you will, drawing locals and visitors alike with a stimulating environment that encourages walking, biking and browsing.

Godspeed, Oceanside. You’re on the right tracks.

Thomas K. Arnold is a Carlsbad planning commissioner. Contact him at tkarnold@aol.com